[Early Review] Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (2022)

Director: Derek Drymon, Jennifer Kuska
Cast: Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Brian Hull, Kathryn Hahn, Jim Gaffigan, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, David Spade, Keegan-Michael Key, Fran Drescher, Brad Abrell, Asher Blinkoff
Screenplay: Amos Vernon, Nunzio Randazzo, Genndy Tartakovsky
98 mins. Rated PG for some action and rude humor including cartoon nudity.

I’ve spent the last week binging everything Hotel Transylvania. Prior to a week ago, I hadn’t seen a single film in the franchise, but when I learned that my first press screening of the year would be Transformania, I immediately began watching these films. I watched all three original films, all three short films, and a few episodes of the television series to get into the right realm to see this fourth, and reportedly final (for now) installment of the franchise. See, I do my research.

Dracula (Brian Hull, Pup Star Rescue Dogs) is preparing to retire and hand off the ownership of Hotel Transylvania to his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez, Monte Carlo, TV’s Only Murders in the Building), but he fears that her husband Johnny (Andy Samberg, America: The Motion Picture, TV’s Saturday Night Live) will ruin his beloved hotel with his HUMAN alternatives, he inadvertently convinces Johnny to use a Monsterfication Ray to turn himself into a monster. The ray also turns Drac and his buddies into humans as well. Now, they have to fix the Monsterfication Ray and turn everyone back to normal before Johnny’s monster transformation becomes irreversible.

It’s nice to see all of these characters grow and interact with one another. One of the things that I loved while watching these films over the last week was seeing this steadily growing ensemble work with one another for the sake of hijinks. I think my favorite of the group is the third film, so seeing Drac’s relationship with Ericka (Kathryn Hahn, Afternoon Delight, TV’s WandaVision) continue beyond that film was really nice and seeing that she still has memories of her time as a monster slayer helped to bridge the films nicely to its roots. So often, we get characters that turn good in one film and then become perfect little angels like their past didn’t matter, and here, Ericka’s past definitely mattered, but she’s able to use her skills for a more noble purpose. It was also awesome to see Jim Gaffigan (Chappaquiddick, Luca) return as Van Helsing, a character I found to be captivating and funny from the previous film. Here, he’s living in seclusion and has a purpose in the narrative that, again, ties to his franchise roots (though why he never considered using the Monsterfication Ray to just turn monsters back into humans instead of killing them makes me ponder).

The only missing character that I notably missed is Drac’s father, voiced by Mel Brooks. Never a large role in the franchise, he’s always a welcome inclusion, and it would’ve been fun to see him, a former human-killing hateful vampire, turned into a human. I also noticed the lack of Adam Sandler in the role of Dracula (I didn’t miss Kevin James because Frankenstein just never had a lot to do in the series). While Brian Hull does a great Adam-Sandler-as-Dracula impression, I could tell he wasn’t the same Drac, and it was notable here.

Derek Drymon and Jennifer Kuska take over directing duties from Genndy Tartakovsky, who made the first three films (and contributed to the story and script for this installment). Their directing is much more frenetic. There’s a lot going on in the frame here, and some of it is unnecessary. I can call out the opening of the film set at the hotel party. There is so much plot jammed into this beginning, and then there’s a lot of unsuccessful visual gags here as well. It doesn’t completely derail the film, but moments of the film, specifically in the handling of Johnny, gets really annoying. There’s a chase scene at the party where Johnny yells out Mavis’s name perhaps a hundred times in a five-minute sequence, and it becomes really frustrating, and headache-producing, to listen to.

Part of that falls down to the screenplay as well, co-written by Tartakovsky along with Amos Vernon and Nunzio Randazzo. There’s an excellent idea at play here that goes back to the central themes of the first movie (whereas the sequels expanded on other elements of the characters). The concept and story work pretty well, but some of the dialogue is tell-don’t-show or characters saying aloud what’s obviously happening on screen. There’s some humor that’s mined from the central premise, but it’s more hit-and-miss than the other films.

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania has had five different release dates since Sony originally placed it in October 2021. The Delta variant launched this film all over the back half of last year before it rested as an Amazon Original in January, and the finished movie is probably the weakest installment of the franchise thus far, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth watching. If you’ve enjoyed the previous three films, then this one should be an enjoyable, though slightly less so, time in front of the television. If you didn’t like the Hotel Transylvania franchise to this point, then this one won’t sway you. I liked it but seeing it in such quick succession with the other films only highlights its flaws more.

3/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

January 13, 2022 0

[31 Days of Horror Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan] Day 9 – [Happy 40th Birthday!] Full Moon High (1981)

Director: Larry Cohen
Cast: Adam Arkin, Roz Kelly, Ed McMahon, Elizabeth Hartman, Bill Kirchenbauer, Joanne Nail, Demond Wilson, Louis Nye, JM Bullock, James Dixon, Kenneth Mars
Screenplay: Larry Cohen
93 mins. Rated PG.

Up until seeing Full Moon High, my only experience with a Larry Cohen (God Told Me To, It’s Alive) film is watching Q: The Winged Serpent a few years back. I own a number of his films but just haven’t gotten time, but I’ve been told by great many colleagues that he’s got that Grindhouse flavor but he’s cleverer than he’s given credit for. Well, if you’ve seen Full Moon High, you can perhaps imagine my shock when the film turned out to be a cheesy satirical comedy about werewolves. Then, the question must be asked: how does Larry Cohen deal with parody?

High school student Tony (Adam Arkin, A Serious Man, Pig), while on a trip to Transylvania with his father, is bitten by a werewolf. With his new affliction, Tony cannot age, and he is forced to disappear when the curse becomes too much to deal with, only to return decades later to fix his high school status.

Full Moon High appeared near the beginning of a long line of werewolf movies. The 80s were oversaturated with werewolves, with 3 Howling films, 2 Teen Wolf films, Wolfen, The Company of Wolves, and of course An American Werewolf in London. The latter of these films featured the makeup effects of Rick Baker. His protégé, Steve Neill, did the effects for Full Moon High. With all that werewolf mania, Full Moon High actually kind of stands out from the crowd, or at least it should have. This movie is delightful and I’m surprised it isn’t discussed more, even among Cohen’s works. Far from flawless, I found the satirical edge of Cohen’s writing and the likable Adam Arkin leading the cast, Full Moon High mostly worked for me.

That being said, this is a movie that, very early on, makes it clear what you are about to see, and it presents its tone very capably, almost like an episode of Saturday Night Live dedicated to making werewolf jokes for 90 minutes, and that comparison is apt because, like SNL, this movie has some bits that are uproarious and others that are…not so much.

Still, there are enough funny bits scattered through the movie that really work, and there are some surprises for fans of classic comedy as well. Is that Bob Saget playing two different roles? Yes. Is that 3 Arkins in the movie (Adam, father Alan, and brother Anthony)? Yes. We even get a healthy dose of Kenneth Mars (Young Frankenstein, The Producers) as both the coach and principal of the school, and he gets some very Mel Brooks-inspired scenes throughout.

Full Moon High is quite a funny little comedy that has sadly been buried by time. I had to do some heavy searching for a copy only to come across an embarrassingly low quality version on Paramount+. This is a style of comedy very akin to Mel Brooks and Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker, and it that’s your thing, I think you’ll get a kick out of this one…if you can find it.

3/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Larry Cohen’s Q: The Winged Serpent, click here.

October 9, 2021 1

Rest in Peace: Buck Henry, 89

The entertainment mourns a tremendous loss today as we learn of the passing of Buck Henry, known for his work as an actor, a director, and a writer. Henry has a great many credits to his name, and I’d like to talk a bit about the ones I feel strongly about, in no particular order.

Grumpy Old Men: I think my first memory of seeing Henry onscreen was in the film Grumpy Old Men, where he played Snyder, the government employee trying to take John Gustafson’s house from him. He’s a straight man in the comedy, and the closest thing to a true villain in the film, and while he’s not onscreen a lot in the film, he’s memorably without any remorse for what he has to do, and it made him an effective antagonist.

Get Smart: Henry was the co-creator of Get Smart with Mel Brooks, and this is one of those shows that I feel was so ahead of its time, creating a great many tropes of parody-storytelling, and it’s a shame it’s gone mostly forgotten outside of the so-so film adaptation from a decade ago. I truly enjoyed watching these classic episodes and I actually had no idea that Buck Henry helped create and develop the series until a few years ago.

The Graduate: This is a film I only recently saw for the first time, but Henry’s dry humor can be found all over this screenplay. He was a gifted storyteller that created moments and situations that feel lived-in, even when the subject matter is almost silly. This a terrific screenplay and a wonderful film.

The Player: I actually saw The Player before The Graduate. It was in a film appreciation class in college, but revisiting it some time later, I absolutely adore the appearance by Henry, playing himself, pitching a sequel to The Graduate. It’s a fun little moment in a strange and surreal satire of Hollywood.

Saturday Night Live: I’ve seen several of Buck Henry’s appearances on SNL, dating back to the show’s first season. I firmly believe that his numerous appearances early on helped to develop a tone for where the show would go. He was always quite funny and unique, and I enjoyed seeing his episodes of the classic sketch comedy series. They are some of the best.

Buck Henry had his hand in a lot of Hollywood throughout his varied career in front of and behind the camera. He will be missed.

Notable Credits:

The Graduate (1967)
Get Smart (TV) (1965-1970)
What’s Up, Doc? (1972)
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
Heaven Can Wait (1978)
Saturday Night Live (TV) (1976-1980)
The Nude Bomb (1980)
Eating Raoul (1982)
The Player (1992)
Short Cuts (1993)
Grumpy Old Men (1993)
Town & Country (2001)

Do you have a favorite piece of cinema from Buck Henry? Let me know/Drop a comment down below.

-Kyle A. Goethe

January 9, 2020 0

[Early Review] Yesterday (2019)

Director: Danny Boyle

Cast: Himesh Patel, Lily James, Kate McKinnon, Ed Sheeran

Screenplay: Richard Curtis

116 mins. Rated PG-13 for suggestive content and language.

Yesterday is kind of a strange movie. Ever since I first heard bits and pieces about its story and style, I found myself to be a bit confused. I wasn’t really sure what a film like this could say about anything, and I didn’t really see where a character-driven journey could go that actually made the film’s existence worth it. Really, the only pure driving force that kept me interested was Danny Boyle (127 Hours, T2 Trainspotting) as director. As my screening grew closer, though, I found my curiosity building and my excitement rising, though I couldn’t really tell you why. Upon seeing the film, I still think it’s rather strange, but I cannot fault it for finding a very human and moving story through the eyes of a struggling artist, and it’s a film definitely worth trying.

Jack Malik (Himesh Patel, The Fox, TV’s EastEnders) is a struggling musician trying to find an audience. He knows there’s something special in his music. His manager and close friend, Ellie (Lily James, Cinderella, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again), knows it too, but for some reason, he just cannot find the fame he’s been looking for. He’s decided to give up on his dream, but that night, a major power outage occurs across the entire Earth and he is accidentally hit by a bus that doesn’t see him in the dark streets. When Jack wakes up, he discovers that he is in an alternate history where The Beatles never existed. He remembers them perfectly, but no one else does. Now, everyone has fallen in love with Jack’s songs, but they aren’t really his, and he finds that the fame he’s been seeking doesn’t mean much if you aren’t happy with yourself. Jack is in a situation where he must decide if a career of fortunes surrounding a lie is worth losing the woman he loves in the process.

The central relationship between Himesh Patel’s Jack and Lily James’s Ellie is so great and pure. She’s been his biggest supporter for fifteen years, loving him from afar and showing it with her belief and dedication and he fails to see what she needs from him. Sometimes, those relationships between friends really strain because both parties aren’t getting what they need from each other, and Ellie has ended up in a friend/manager column of his life instead of a love column. Now, I fail to see how any person wouldn’t fall in love with Lily James instantly, but for the purposes of this review, I will say that Jack’s eyes are set on the eventual fame and career he wants, and it makes for a moving struggle between two people who obviously love each other but just cannot get their paths to come together in the right way to make it work.

Now, there’s some logic issues to the film that I was hoping wouldn’t keep coming to mind, but Jack wakes up in a version of the world where The Beatles never existed as a band. As the story progresses, we see that their non-existence has an effect on more than just their music’s absence, so the question arises as to how Ed Sheeran (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Pop Star) became a musician if his primary influence never existed. Would he have pursued music? The Beatles aren’t the only band that doesn’t exist. Oasis never became a band and sang Wonderwall. There are writers that didn’t exist. There are products that were never invented. It never really explains what the central break in these timelines is or how it affected certain things but not others. Would Coldplay have existed? The film reminded me of Us or Avengers: Endgame where, if you let the logic gaps or questions bother you then you’ll miss out on the journey itself, so it’s best not to think about it. But the question did come up for me.

In that same vein, there are questions raised about the nature of a song like Back in the USSR, which Jack claims to have written the day of a concert in Russia. Ed Sheeran points out that it hasn’t been called the USSR since before Jack was born, and it’s a funny scene because it does point out the potential for problems in making music at a different time than was intended, or if you didn’t live the life of the person who wrote it. It comes up again with Hey Jude later on. I really liked when Jack’s narrative was tested; I just wanted more of it. For example, later in the film, Jack sings I Saw Her Standing There, which starts with the lyric “She was just seventeen…” and when I heard him sing it, I thought to myself that a song like that probably wouldn’t exist in this timeframe without some controversy. It’s something I wish Boyle and screenwriter Richard Curtis (Love Actually, About Time) would have delved into more.

Then there’s Kate McKinnon (Ghostbusters: Answer the Call, TV’s Saturday Night Live), who in the film essentially plays Kate McKinnon. She’s a very capable actress but sometimes she is used to excess, and the film struggles to find a use for her near the end, causing her to turn into a quite an annoyance by the end. I get what she’s trying to do, but the narrative doesn’t need it.

If the central relationship and moral quandary of the film didn’t work, Yesterday would be a bit of a mess. Thankfully, those two elements make for an extremely satisfying film, one that created conflict even among the people watching the film with me. It isn’t exactly going to leave you in a place you expect, but the film overall is surprisingly enjoyable and a good example of uniquely interesting ideas, even if they aren’t fully fleshed out. This is one I’ll be recommending for some time.

4/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

June 5, 2019 0

Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)

Director: Paul Feig

Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Cecily Strong, Andy Garcia, Charles Dance, Michael K. Williams, Matt Walsh, Chris Hemsworth

Screenplay: Katie Dippold, Paul Feig

116 mins. Rated PG-13 for supernatural action and some crude humor.

Yes, it’s that Ghostbusters film review.

Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy, TV’s Gilmore Girls, The Boss) and Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig, The Martian, How to Train Your Dragon 2) were once partners, true believers, and friends, but that was a long time ago. The two have grown apart due to Erin’s attempts at unbelieving in the paranormal that brought the two together in the first place, but a rogue copy of the paranormal research book that Abby and Erin wrote years earlier surfaces and causes them to reunite alongside Abby’s new colleague Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon, TV’s Saturday Night Live, Finding Dory) and…uh, the one who drives the car, Patty (Leslie Jones, Trainwreck, Top Five). Together, the Ghostbusters must use their tools and expertise to stop a maniac trying to create an otherworldly invasion.

After watching the “Most Disliked” Trailer Ever on Youtube (yeah, it holds that distinction) and seeing one of the worst marketing campaigns in film history, I was extremely nervous. After all, I’ve been a fan of this franchise since I’ve known fear (that Vigo the Carpathian painting still unnerves me) and I’ve been frustratingly watching as hopes of a third film slowly dwindled into nothingness all because of Bill Murray. Yeah, I put all the blame on him. So, I was very judgmental of this reboot from the very beginning. I paid no attention to the gender-swapping in the movie because it didn’t really bother me. I just didn’t really care. What I did care about was a fun and frightful adventure that stayed true to the original but forged its own path.

For the most part, I actually really enjoyed Ghostbusters: Answer the Call. There were so many great elements and the fact that it wasn’t a straight remake really won me over. The Paul Feig (Spy, The Heat) comedy was really funny and even though it missed the frights, it didn’t completely take me out of the experience.

There was a glaring issue that, for some, might not be a big deal. For me, it really was. This glaring issue was the decision to ignore the previous two installments. Instead of a brave decision, it felt like a slap in the face, especially with so many of the original performers returning for stupid cameos. Not a single cameo in this film made me happy except for the return of Ernie Hudson. Why Feig and fellow screenwriter Katie Dippold didn’t make this a passing of the torch I’ll never know. All it would have taken was one scene of Dan Aykroyd handing the equipment over to his neice or something. It wouldn’t even have had to been a good passing of the torch to be better than the complete retconning of the franchise. A true miss that is really the one major problem I had in an otherwise mostly enjoyable film experience.

Perhaps one day we will get the extended cut we deserve with the original 4-hour cut that Paul Feig originally ended up with. For now, we will have to settle with a pretty fun film that pays homage and walks its own path. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the laugh-out-loud work from Chris Hemsworth (Thor, Star Trek) as Kevin the receptionist. Now, I don’t know if we are getting Ghostbusters: Answer the Call 2 down the road (the box office numbers aren’t exactly screaming for it) but I can only hope to see more adventures from this crew.

4/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

So have you seen Ghostbusters: Answer the Call yet? What did you think? And what is your preferred horror/comedy of choice? Let me know!

For my review of Paul Feig’s The Heat, click here.

September 19, 2016 6

[Star Wars Days] Revenge of the Sixth…SNL Auditions

Hey everyone, I wanted to end our Star Wars Days celebration this year with some fun. My favorite spoof of Star Wars, in fact. Years ago, Saturday Night Live did a sketch outlining auditions for the original Star Wars featuring Kevin Spacey in a number of different impersonations. I present it to you here, now, and for the hell of it. Enjoy!

*okay, I couldn’t find the entire video. If someone out there finds it, please link it here. I do have a few snippets though, so enjoy!

-Kyle A. Goethe

May 6, 2016 0

Race (2016)

Director: Stephen Hopkins

Cast: Stephan James, Jason Sudeikis, Eli Goree, Jeremy Irons, Carice van Houten, William Hurt

Screenplay: Joe Shrapnel, Anna Waterhouse

134 mins. Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and language.

Well, 2015 was an interesting year in film. But all years must come to an end, so today we look forward at 2016, starting with the Stephen Hopkins (TV’s House of Lies, Lost in Space) film, Race.

Race is mostly a biographical film chronicling the career of Jesse Owens (Stephan James, Selma, Lost After Dark) leading up to his time in the 1936 Olympics in Germany and his battle to win the gold over Adolf Hitler’s Aryan athletes. The film also displays the work of Avery Brundage (Jeremy Irons, The Lion King, High-Rise) to come to a decision over whether it is worth it to travel to Germany in the first place.

First of all, I should point out how terrific the title is. Sure, a little on the head, but nonetheless effective.

Stephen Hopkins faces a difficult task with this film, and that task is to decide what his film is even about. He fails in this task. He wants to make a biopic of Jesse Owens, but he wants to make a historical drama focused on the 1936 Olympics, and he wants to touch on Leni Riefenstahl (Carice van Houten, TV’s Game of Thrones, Black Book) and her quest to make a film on the Olympics from all its viewpoints. Sadly, while it is possible to do this in one film, it is unsuccessful in the attempt. For one thing, the very nature of the Jesse Owens part of the film dominates the far-too-much time spent on Brundage trying to keep the peace. The audience becomes fully aware very early on of the outcome but the film chooses to drag the plotline through to its conclusion at the loss of viewer engagement.

Stephan James does pretty solid work as Owens, and Jason Sudeikis (TV’s Saturday Night Live, We’re the Millers) gives an admirable attempt in breaking out of his comfort zone to portray Larry Snyder, Owens’ coach, while veterans Irons and William Hurt (Into the Wild, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them) feel wasted by an underdeveloped screenplay.

The film has its moments, particularly in the sequences where Owens is competing. While these sequences are very much what one would expect, it’s nice to see Hopkins commanding the screen if only occasionally.

The pacing, though, is really where he loses us, focusing too much time on plot points that don’t add up to enough to maintain his momentum. Stephen Hopkins has given some truly great work to the genre field, but I feel like even he isn’t sure of himself here, and the work suffers from it. Race leaps into the air, reaching for greatness, but unlike its lead character, it comes up far too short.

2.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

March 10, 2016 5

St. Vincent (2014)

Director: Theodore Melfi

Cast: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts, Jaeden Lieberher

Screenplay: Theodore Melfi

102 mins. Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material including sexual content, alcohol and tobacco use, and for language.

Bill Murray (Groundhog Day, Dumb and Dumber To) has done a lot of things recently seemingly to piss me off. He has also done a lot of things recently to make me happy. He is an enigma, much more aligned with the assholery of his fellow Saturday Night Live-r Chevy Chase (there, I said it). So when St. Vincent came out, I wasn’t terribly keen to see it. I forgot, though, about Murray’s innate ability to perform the hell out of a movie.

In St. Vincent, Murray plays…Vincent, an older war vet who seems to hate everything and everyone except his dear Daka (Naomi Watts, King Kong, The Divergent Series: Insurgent), a paid lover who is having his baby. When he is roped into babysitting Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher) at the behest of his down-on-her-luck mother Maggie (Melissa McCarthy, TV’s Gilmore Girls, Spy), Vincent uses the situation to his benefit, practically extorting the situation to his liking. When he finds that Oliver is in need of a father-figure, Vincent finds himself growing closer to the boy, whether he like it or not.

The performances here are great, especially those from Murray and Watts (who plays Daka so well that I forgot it was her). Even young Lieberher keeps his own with the commanding comedic vet Murray.

A lot of people have discussed this film’s merits and its possible snub during the Oscars, and while I feel that it has a great many good things about the screenplay and the performances, the film’s technical aspects are nothing of particularly astounding quality. Director Theodore Melfi can make a movie, but a powerhouse award winner perhaps not. For what it is, St. Vincent is a cute little piece of a movie with some great work turned in from the actors. Groundbreaking? No. Funny with a heart? Sure. The acting here is what makes the film.

4/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

April 10, 2015 2

[Happy 5th Birthday!] Date Night (2010)

Director: Shawn Levy

Cast: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Taraji P. Henson, Common, Mark Wahlberg

Screenplay: Josh Klausner

88 mins. Rated PG-13 for sexual and crude content throughout, language, some violence and a drug reference.

Steve Carell (TV’s The Office, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day) and Tina Fey (TV’s Saturday Night Live, This is Where I Leave You) are comedic powerhouses with great chemistry, and in Date Night, from director Shawn Levy (Real Steel, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb), they get the chance to play with it, even with the screenplay’s excessive shortcomings.

Carell and Fey play the Fosters, Phil and Claire, and they need a new spark of romance in their lives. Their friends are getting divorced from a lack of love and they desperately want a date night to change it all, so when the tables are booked at the new restaurant, they take the table reserved for the absent Tripplehorns and enjoy their night. That is, until a case of mistaken identity leads to a seedy underworld of bad cops, worse mobsters, and a missing flash drive containing some very dangerous content and the Fosters have more on their plates than a missing spark.

Carell and Fey have tremendous chemistry and play so well off of each other, while director Levy controls the camera nicely lobbing back and forth between action and comedy. We also get some great cameo work from Mark Wahlberg (Boogie Nights, The Gambler), James Franco, Mila Kunis, and more.

The biggest issue here is from screenwriter Josh Klausner (Shrek Forever After: The Final Chapter, The 4th Floor) and his disappointing script. It has a nice general outline; there are laughs here and action there, but rarely do the two meet on equal ground (the dual-car car chase is an exception) which doesn’t give the leads much to do to flash their creative abilities.

The leads perform quite admirable and carry the film much better than most others could, which help make Date Night a worthy view of a film, even if it suffers from pitfalls of a less-than-worthy screenplay.

3/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Shawn Levy’s Night at the Museum, click here.

For my review of Shawn Levy’s Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, click here.

April 6, 2015 1

Shrek (2001)

Director: Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson

Cast: Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, John Lithgow

Screenplay: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Joe Stillman, Roger S.H. Schulman

90 mins. Rated PG for mild language and some crude humor.

Academy Award Winner: Best Animated Feature
Academy Award Nominee: Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Published or Produced.

It isn’t easy to pull off a family film that stands tall years later. It is tougher to make that film a satire and to have to comedy still funny. Shrek did it. Shrek did it wonderfully.

Shrek (Mike Myers, TV’s Saturday Night Live, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me) is a simple ogre. He has a swamp and a boulder and he likes it that way. The local villagers leave him alone and in turn he keeps to himself. It isn’t until he runs into a talking donkey (Eddie Murphy, Beverly Hills Cop, A Thousand Words) and is sent on a mythical quest to save a princess (Cameron Diaz, There’s Something About Mary, Sex Tape) from a dragon-guarded castle at the behest of the powerful Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow, TV’s 3^rd Rock From the Sun, Interstellar) that Shrek truly learns what companionship can do to an ogre.

Shrek is a masterpiece and truly cemented Dreamworks Animation as being a powerful competitor to Disney’s Pixar. The voicework from Myers and Murphy is very strong here. They have a terrific chemistry (or lack thereof) during their scenes together. Lithgow really menaces here; until this movie, I hadn’t really seen anything from him proving that he could be villainous in nature.

Directors Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson created a wonderful enthusiasm that both satires and homages classic fairy tales. This was a precursor to shows like Once Upon a Time and Penny Dreadful, where we are treated to an alternate version of classic characters.

Shrek is a master stroke of genius for family films and just comedies in general. I wish more films targeted at children had the boldness to provide laughs for all ages instead of pandering the way most of them do.

5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Puss in Boots, click here.

November 8, 2014 5